Garnishment lets a Toronto Small Claims judgment creditor intercept money a third party owes the debtor. The creditor files an affidavit and Notice of Garnishment with the court, then serves it on the garnishee — the employer or bank — and on the debtor. An employer must remit up to 20% of the debtor's net wages each pay (up to 50% for support); a bank must remit the funds in the account on the day of service, with no percentage limit. Money flows through the court, which distributes it to creditors. A garnishment lasts six years and can be renewed until the judgment, interest, and costs are paid.
- Garnishment targets the third party who owes the debtor — employer, bank, or customer — not the debtor directly.
- Wage garnishment takes up to 20% of net pay under the Wages Act, every payday, until the debt is retired.
- Bank garnishment attaches the full balance on the day of service — no 20% cap — so targeting and timing decide its yield.
- All garnished money flows through the court, which distributes it — never directly to the creditor.
- A garnishment notice lasts six years and is renewable; diarize the renewal or the stream stops.
- Naming the garnishee correctly (exact legal name, right branch) is the difference between payment and a dead notice.
What Garnishment Actually Is
Every other enforcement tool acts on the debtor; garnishment acts on someone who owes the debtor. The legal logic is elegant: your debtor's employer owes them wages; their bank owes them the account balance; their customer owes them an invoice. A Notice of Garnishment redirects that obligation — the garnishee pays the court instead of the debtor, and the court pays you. That structure explains everything unusual about the procedure: why the garnishee (a company with payroll lawyers, not an angry debtor) almost always complies; why the money routes through the court rather than your pocket; and why precision in naming and serving the garnishee matters more than anything the debtor says or does. Garnishment presupposes a judgment — from trial, settlement terms, or default proceedings — and sits alongside the examination and writ in the broader Toronto enforcement playbook. This article goes deep on the one tool that most often produces the actual money.
Before You File: Intelligence
A garnishment is only as good as its target, so the work starts before the forms. For wage garnishment you need the employer's correct legal name and address — not the storefront banner but the entity that issues the paycheque, which in Toronto is frequently a numbered company or a staffing agency rather than the brand on the door. A corporate profile search (the same searches detailed in our guide to suing Toronto businesses) resolves the name; pay stubs, LinkedIn, and examination answers resolve who actually employs them. For bank garnishment you need the institution and ideally the branch: an old cheque from the debtor shows both on its face, an e-transfer address hints at the institution, and a debtor examination compels the answer under oath. Creditors who skip this step serve garnishments into the void — the notice binds only what the named garnishee actually owes the named debtor, and a bank with no matching account simply files a statement saying so.
The Paperwork & Filing
The package is compact. You swear an affidavit for enforcement request setting out the judgment, payments received, and the balance owing — with postjudgment interest calculated to date and enforcement costs added — and file it with the Small Claims Court along with the fee (itself added to the debt). The clerk then issues the Notice of Garnishment naming the debtor and the garnishee and stating the total owing. Accuracy is everything at this stage: the debtor's name must match the judgment, the balance must be current and supportable, and the garnishee's legal name must be exact — “TD” is a logo; “The Toronto-Dominion Bank” is a garnishee. Where the judgment came from a Toronto proceeding, the enforcement file typically runs through the Toronto Small Claims Court office at 47 Sheppard Avenue East, though a garnishment can issue from the court where the debtor or garnishee is located — a flexibility that matters when the employer sits outside the city.
Serving the Garnishee & Debtor
The issued notice must be served on both the garnishee and the debtor — the garnishee so the obligation attaches, the debtor so they can dispute it. Service on the garnishee follows the corporate service rules: on a bank, at a branch (serve the branch where the account is held — garnishment of bank accounts attaches at the branch level, which is why branch intelligence pays); on an employer, at its place of business or registered office. The debtor gets their copy by mail or personal service. From the moment of service, the garnishee is on the hook: money it owes the debtor — wages coming due, the account balance that day — must be remitted to the court, and a garnishee who ignores a valid notice and pays the debtor anyway can be ordered to pay the debt itself. That personal exposure is why payroll departments and bank legal teams comply with clean paperwork almost mechanically — and why sloppy paperwork gives them the easy out of a “no funds” garnishee's statement.
Wage Garnishment: The 20% Stream
Served on an employer, the notice creates a continuing garnishment: the employer computes the debtor's net wages each pay period and remits the garnishable share to the court, pay after pay, until the total in the notice is satisfied or the notice expires. The Ontario Wages Act caps the take at 20% of net wages for ordinary judgment debts — 50% where the debt is support — and a judge can adjust the percentage either way on motion where hardship or tactics justify it. The arithmetic drives strategy: 20% of a Toronto debtor's $1,900 biweekly net is $380 a pay, roughly $9,880 a year against the judgment — run the numbers for your own debtor with the wage garnishment calculator, which models per-pay recovery and time-to-payout. Wage garnishment's virtues are steadiness and pressure: it is hard for a payroll employee to evade, and the arrival of a garnishment notice at work — visible to the employer — settles a remarkable number of files within days. Its limits: it needs a genuine employer (not a self-directed corporation that stops paying salary), it shares pro rata when other creditors file, and employment income below meaningful levels yields a thin stream.
Bank Garnishment: The Snapshot
The identical notice served on a bank behaves completely differently: it attaches the funds standing in the debtor's account at the moment of service — up to the full balance owing on the judgment, with no 20% limitation, because the Wages Act protects wages in the employer's hands, not money sitting in an account. The bank freezes and remits; the debtor finds out when the card declines. One notice captures one snapshot — funds deposited the following week are not caught — so yield turns on timing and targeting: serve the right institution and branch, and where the debtor's deposit pattern is known (payday, the first of the month for a landlord debtor, seasonal receivables for a contractor), time service just after money lands. Complications to expect: joint accounts (the bank may remit and leave the co-holder to dispute, or pay only the debtor's share into court), exempt deposits such as social assistance and certain federal benefits which the debtor can claw back at a hearing, and accounts held at “virtual” branches that take service centrally. Bank and wage garnishment run in parallel without conflict — the snapshot and the stream — and pairing them is standard Toronto practice.
Other Garnishees: Receivables & Rent
The tool generalizes to anyone who owes your debtor money, which is where creative enforcement lives. A self-employed debtor's customers can be garnished for the invoices they owe — one served notice on a general contractor intercepts the subcontractor debtor's next draw. A debtor who is a landlord can have rent garnished in the tenant's hands; a debtor owed a settlement or insurance payout can have it intercepted; a corporate debtor's accounts receivable are fair game generally. The mechanics are identical — name the garnishee, serve, and the debt redirects — but the intelligence burden is higher, which is why the debtor examination and the document trail from your own dispute (invoices naming their customers, texts naming their tenants) matter so much. This is also the answer to the most common Toronto enforcement complaint — “he's self-employed, I can't garnish wages” — you don't garnish his wages; you garnish the people who pay him.
Garnishment Hearings & Disputes
Any affected party — debtor, garnishee, co-account-holder, competing creditor — can ask for a garnishment hearing before a judge to sort out disputes: the debtor claims the bank deposit was exempt benefits, the garnishee says it owes the debtor nothing, a spouse says the joint account is really hers, or the debtor seeks a reduction of the wage percentage for hardship. The hearing is a focused, evidence-driven appearance — bank statements, payroll records, benefit letters — and preparation wins it: a creditor who arrives with the deposit history and a clean interest calculation holds the ground a vague objection cannot take. Two practical notes for Toronto creditors: first, treat a “no funds” garnishee's statement with healthy skepticism but procedural respect — the remedy for a statement you disbelieve is a hearing, not repeated service; second, hardship adjustments are real but modest — judges balance the debtor's circumstances against your judgment, and the usual outcome is a reduced percentage, not a free pass. If the underlying judgment itself is under attack — a set-aside motion or an appeal to the Divisional Court — garnishment may be stayed until that resolves.
The Money, Renewals & Endgame
Garnished funds flow to the court, which holds them briefly (a buffer against competing claims) and then pays out — pro rata among all creditors who have filed garnishments against the same debtor, not first-come-first-served. Your notice stays alive for six years and can be renewed before expiry; the judgment behind it lasts twenty. Diarize both — the most common self-represented enforcement failure in Toronto is a garnishment that quietly lapsed with the debt half paid. Keep your ledger current as money arrives: interest keeps accruing on the unpaid balance, enforcement costs keep adding, and an accurate running total is what you swear to when you renew or issue against a second garnishee. And keep negotiation open throughout — a debtor being garnished at work frequently proposes a lump-sum settlement or consent payment plan to make the notice go away, which is often the fastest route to the last dollar. For a sequenced plan across all the tools, start with the judgment collection wizard and the provincewide collection walkthrough; for a campaign run professionally — targeting, paperwork, hearings, renewals — our Toronto Small Claims team handles garnishment end to end, with a free first consultation on any unpaid judgment.
Frequently Asked Questions
The court-issued document that redirects money a third party (the garnishee) owes your debtor — wages, an account balance, an invoice — to the court for payment toward your judgment. You obtain it by filing an affidavit showing the judgment and current balance, then serve it on both the garnishee and the debtor.
Up to 20% of net wages for ordinary judgment debts, and up to 50% for support obligations. The employer deducts and remits every pay period until the notice total is satisfied or the notice expires. A judge can raise or lower the percentage on motion where circumstances justify it.
No percentage limit — the notice attaches the funds in the account on the day of service, up to the full judgment balance. The Wages Act 20% cap protects wages in the employer's hands only; once deposited, money in an account is exposed, apart from exempt deposits like social assistance and certain benefits.
Mine your own file first — an old cheque shows the bank and branch, invoices and texts reveal employers and customers. Corporate searches map their companies. Where the file runs dry, a debtor examination compels sworn answers about employment, accounts, and assets, converting suspicion into serviceable targets.
No — the garnishee pays the court, and the court distributes to creditors. If several creditors have filed garnishments against the same debtor, the money is shared pro rata rather than going entirely to whoever filed first. The court's role protects garnishees from paying twice.
A garnishee who is properly served and pays the debtor anyway can be ordered to pay the judgment debt itself — real personal exposure that makes institutional garnishees highly compliant with clean paperwork. If a garnishee files a statement claiming it owes the debtor nothing and you disbelieve it, the remedy is a garnishment hearing.
Not their "wages" — but garnishment reaches anyone who owes them money, so their customers can be served for outstanding invoices, their business bank accounts attached, and rent owed to them intercepted in the tenant's hands. The examination is the key to mapping who pays a self-employed debtor.
A judge-led hearing to resolve garnishment disputes: exemption claims over benefit deposits, joint-account ownership fights, garnishee denials, and debtor hardship requests to reduce the wage percentage. Evidence wins them — bank statements, payroll records, and an accurate interest-updated balance.
The notice binds the garnishee for six years and can be renewed before expiry; the underlying judgment is enforceable for twenty years with postjudgment interest accruing throughout. Diarize renewals — a lapsed notice silently stops a wage stream that was working.
Very often. A wage garnishment visible to the employer, or a bank seizure that empties an account, changes the debtor's incentives overnight — lump-sum offers and consent payment plans routinely follow first remittances. Keep negotiation open while the tools run; the fastest route to the final dollar is frequently a deal the garnishment produced.